Great thanks for these comments, Justin. (I’ve posted this back to the lists as these comment may generate further discussion)
I agree, some discussion of what types of deployments the SHR should support would be great. I’l add this as a topic for one of upcoming calls.
Thanks for your additions, these are helpful. I especially like the privacy/policy constraints. We don’t much experience with this so this would be a good item to explore.
It seems the attachments that I sent out were a bit malformed, apologies. It’s probably best to look at the Google docs as these reflect the newest changes. these are now housed here for ease of use:
···
On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 1:43 AM, Fyfe, Justin justin.fyfe1@mohawkcollege.ca wrote:
Hi Ryan,
The questions look good; however I think we’ll need to think about how it may be deployed as the requirements may change the evaluation of some tools. For example,
if it is expected that some jurisdictions will want to combine the OpenSHR/OpenHIM with commercial/non-oss products then it might change the weighting of interoperability and use of standards. Or if a jurisdiction might deploy the OpenSHR in a peer-to-peer
model then OpenSHR would have to support more robust authentication methods, etc.
I also think future vision will also have an impact on the design. For example, if (in the future) diagnostic imaging or medication management systems will
be included in the HIE then the SHR and HIM design should be mindful of those systems (even if they are just clouds on a paper for the time being).
A few questions that I would probably add to the evaluation are:
- Do the interoperability interfaces support node authentication (non-repudiation), and/or encryption?
- Can the software audit any modifications/disclosure of data (and can those be shipped to a central repository)?
- Does the software support storage and retrieval of basic privacy/policy constraints?
- Is the software modular in nature (i.e. can the solution be modified easily to suit a particular use case)?
- What is the general support base/implementation base for the interoperability interfaces (having interoperability interfaces is great, but if nobody else
implements them it makes it harder to reuse them)
And for the HIM:
- A question about service durability (that is the process whereby an integration software can resume and/or compensate transactions that are interrupted).
- How difficult is the system to learn (estimated effort-hours of training required)?
You may have covered these in your spreadsheet, however I am only seeing one sheet in the workbook (I know there is a second one in there I can’t get to it
though).
I am a big fan of service-oriented and component based architectures (as is shown in the Visualizer, SHR and CR) so my bias tends to be towards identifying
the concerns various bits of the software will require and then abstracting the runtime details to services where they can be activated/disabled based on deployment (i.e. configure instead of compile). Admittedly this does tend to make software design a little
more involved…
I have cc’ed Duane on this thread as he might find it interesting 
Cheers
-Justin
From: rg.crichton@gmail.com [mailto:rg.crichton@gmail.com]
On Behalf Of Ryan
Sent: Monday, April 08, 2013 5:14 AM
To: Fyfe, Justin
Cc: Hannes Venter; Kari Schoonbee
Subject: Re: OpenHIM and OpenSHR evaluation tool
Hi Justin,
I’d really value your comments on these questions in the evaluation tools. I think you guys have more experience with these sort of things so are there any things that you think we are missing here that you can think to add or items that
are unclear or items that you would like to see changed?
Looking forward to seeing you in Cape Town soon!
Cheers,
Ryan
On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 11:49 AM, Ryan ryan@jembi.org wrote:
Hi all,
We have started to create evaluation tools for evaluating technologies for a Shared Health Record and an Interoperability Layer. These tools are in the form of a spreadsheet that asks specific questions of the technology being evaluated
to see how closely is fits the requirements that we have defined for a shared health record and a interoperability layer.
I will be going over what we have some far on the call today but I’d like to ask everyone involved in these communities to go over the questions we have put down offline and see
if there are any more questions you would like to add or if there are any questions you would like to see changed to more accurately reflect what you believe should be asked of a shared health record or an interoperability layer technology.
The links to these evaluation tools are as follows:
SHR: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah8KVMJr8h4pdDBaVjh6TGJYc3FzZlJfcGd6d245Mnc&pli=1#gid=0
Interoperability Layer: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah8KVMJr8h4pdDVaM1J3N1RtNzdkMEdCaTBXdWppbVE&pli=1#gid=1
I have also attached a copy of the questions that you can use to capture your comments and additional questions on. Remember feel free to change this as you feel is right, we will compile the changes and discuss them on following calls.
Please could you try send this feedback back to me by 8th April, the date of our next call.
I look forward to your comments!
Cheers,
Ryan
–
Ryan Crichton
Senior Software Developer, Jembi Health Systems | SOUTH AFRICA
Mobile:
+27845829934 | Skype: ryan.graham.crichton*
E-mail: ryan@jembi.org*
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Ryan Crichton
Senior Software Developer, Jembi Health Systems | SOUTH AFRICA
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E-mail: ryan@jembi.org
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Ryan Crichton
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Mobile: +27845829934 | Skype: ryan.graham.crichton
E-mail: ryan@jembi.org